Love Phobia

“Because of your fears and insecurities, you are keeping a lot of good people out of your life.” Goldie, Fuck Boy

For many people, both men and women, the ability to receive love and appreciate it remains a struggle. Some would attribute the phobia to a complex: the person receiving love feels as if they do not deserve it. They may have unresolved trauma from their pasts that make them feel as if they are not a person to love. They feel weak or sometimes despise themselves. With Solomon, many women love him, but overtly and covertly he rejects it and them. The more they attempt to show him his feelings, the more he spurns their advances. With Goldie, she shows him he has a safe environment. She encourages him to be vulnerable and allows him the space to do so. Despite her concessions, Solomon holds back and pushes away. He hurts the people who profess to love him the most.

Our culture of dating emphasizes pleasure over responsibility, apathy over feeling. For many men, being loved and desired is more important than reciprocation. Men’s value is staked in being desirable. Being loved by many and not loving all is the peak. It is also the peak of narcissism. Wanting love and not returning it speaks to the ego. It plagues women. In a society where love stems from attention, women resort to adopting these same values. Women invite attention from people they don’t like to raise their value to other men they like. When they don’t receive love from who they love, they feel as if it indicates an inferior dating pool. For most of the book Solomon finds himself avoiding love and instead choosing lust. Rather than feel pleasure, he felt guilt. But when he finds love he subconsciously destroys it through neglect. Towards the end of the novel he finds a woman who loves him and almost right on cue he remembers the past lovers and how he treated them. Sometimes we must remember that love is a verb not just a noun.